Creation
by 23blenders
Summary: When one angel falls, Palutena must acquire a new one to serve her.


**This here is one idea I had for Pit's birth and training. Realistically, he's a better fighter than all his centurions, and had to get it from somewhere. And it always seemed a little odd to me that he wins in literally every fight. There wouldn't be much of a game if that weren't the case, but I still like what I did.**

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><p>Palutena stood in her private quarters, two strings of light in her hands.<p>

The one in her right hand, she'd been given by Eurus, the East wind. It was a piece of his divine soul, and it was difficult to see. The string was mostly clear, but with a tint of blue.

The other string was a much more vivid blue, but with much less light to it; it had been given to her by one of her followers. Palutena had seen this woman at her temple several times, always happy to be in the temple of her goddess. She had a sunny personality, and an eagerness to please that Palutena approved of, for this purpose.

She brought the two strings together and twisted them carefully; they merged into one pale blue one that shone with the mark of divinity and immortality. She was holding a brand new and unique soul in her hands right now.

Palutena approached an egg shaped cocoon that was open on the top, and filled with a warm liquid. She placed the soul inside the cocoon, and concentrated as it floated downwards. Her own light surrounded it for a moment. The soul shrank into a speck that she could not see, only sense. She sealed the cocoon, but left her hands on it for a moment. It always awed her to create a new being, and she was always keenly interested in watching it grow. Left to its own devices, it could have grown into any shape but she always nudged them into taking the shape of a human, but with wings to travel about her realm. She called them Angels.

This particular speck happened to be male, and like his predecessors would grow in a human timeframe. Nine months, then she would remove him from the cocoon.

For days, no change could be seen. Then one day she gasped to sense the tiny, rapid beating of a newly created heart.

Being in a cocoon made him develop rather a bird in an egg, and within a couple weeks Palutena spotted the thin, spidery veins growing in the fluid. Before that, to anybody else the cocoon would have seemed empty but Palutena knew better. She felt the life within, the immature heartbeat. It wasn't much longer before the veins webbed all over the inside membrane of the cocoon, and the growth was now obvious to anybody who would glance. Not that many did, for she kept the child safe in her own rooms. Her angel was precious to her.

She couldn't resist shining her own light through the cocoon sometimes, and seeing the tiny dark spot in the middle of the veins. After a while, it began to kick around in response to the light. She had to work to strengthen the surrounding veins and calm the developing baby so he wouldn't damage himself in his pre-birth exercises.

As the time drew nearer and nearer, the growing baby ran out of room to move and was rather tightly packed. Palutena stopped shining light in because there was nothing to see now. The entire cocoon had gone dark.

The day came. Despite growing like a chick would, the baby would not be able to 'hatch' like one. Extracting the child was to be a drawn out and difficult task, but she'd done it many times before. The first thing to do, was to find his face and open a hole so he could breathe. The veins that covered the sides of the cocoon had breathed for him this whole time, taking the air through the cocoon to sustain him. To begin the process of leaving the cocoon, the child must first breathe with his lungs.

Palutena used her powers to examine the cocoon closely until she knew where his face was, then again used her power to carefully move the veins aside. Then she tore a small hole and uncovered the tiny face.

The light was enough to startle him into taking a breath, and his eyes snapped open at the same time, the same pale blue as most newborns. Before focusing on her, he blinked several times and scrunched his face as he worked his lungs for the first time. He didn't cry, her angels never did.

The baby would have to spend many hours just sitting there and breathing. Not moving. Not being taken out. He would spend this time pulling all the blood from the veins back into his body, and until that happened he must stay in the cocoon. To remove him would be to kill him.

He slept for most of this. But when he was awake he stared through the hole at Palutena, who stared back and spoke softly to him. At times she would stroke his tiny cheek and tell him he could properly meet her very soon, and all of the other things they would do when he was finally with her.

She checked frequently, and after a full day he was ready to be safely removed. She reached in and tore the sides, pulling it back from him. There was all sorts of mess on him, but she had judged correctly and found no more than a few traces of blood on him.

He'd been calm and patient all this time, but the cold air was more than he could take. He scrunched up his face, opened his mouth wide and let out a shrill wail.

Palutena could hardly bear this, and cooed at him as she held the tiny angel to her chest. She looked down and smiled to see a tiny pair of fleshy pink wings. They would only appear pink for the first couple hours, for they were also covered in stringy wet down. Before a year was up they'd be fully feathered.

She held him until his cries diminished into little whimpers, then quiet. By this time, he'd dried significantly (and of course, it was now all over her dress) and she changed her hold to cradling him.

He was riveted by her face, and hardly took his eyes off her. She knew she should be feeding the newborn and cleaning the sticky residue off of him, but she was captivated by his attention. He just stared, and his little chest rose and fell rapidly. She could sense his heart beating strongly. She had overseen everything that had gone into his creation, but it still mystified her to see the results.

And he was hers, all hers. He was not genetically her child, but it fell to her to raise him anyway. Partly she did this because he would lead her armies one day, and it was better for him to know this realm in its entirety from the moment of his birth. And a reason that she made no effort to hide, was that she loved having an excuse to raise a child. It was the closest thing she could get to having a family without complicating the ranks of gods with her own godly children. To be sure, the angel was descended from a god himself- but Eurus was a more minor god, and the influence of this parentage was channeled into his immortality, his strength and his eventual flight. He might turn up with more minor powers, but nothing that could make him into a full blown god.

She bathed him in warm water, gently cleaning the short brown fuzz on his head and put him in a tiny white outfit, with slits cut for his wings. The down dried in stiff strings, but slowly little dusty flakes came off revealing a very fine hair with even finer branches. As more downy strands lost their outer coat, they began to interlock into a dense fluff to protect the fragile pink skin underneath. As he slept, they were relaxed and partly unfolded, twitching occasionally.

By the next day, they were fully fluffed and she loved to pinch the soft down between her fingers. She couldn't wait for him to be ticklish, the wings always had a good spot on them. For a long time, they would be unavailable to him for flight, to prevent him from going anywhere while he was still young enough to need supervision. Until he could fly, the centurions would help keep an eye on him; furthermore, he would be able to glide on his wings early on, so he'd be able to soften any falls he took. But she did mostly rely on the centurions, gliding was just a failsafe.

Although she had his training begin once he was steady on his feet and with his hands, she never dreamed he'd need it so soon. But oh, she was so proud of him for protecting all of Skyworld from Medusa. She still decided to call in a favor with another god, who routinely participated in wars, to train her angel for a time. She was terrified that something else would happen, and he wouldn't be able to defend himself.

She had to remind herself as an afterthought that he must also defend her, and Skyworld. But of course, she had always figured that angels wouldn't be expected to defend her until they were somewhat older, no longer children. Sometimes, fate had other ideas though and she grimly accepted that this child must be able to rely on himself- and she might once again be forced to rely on him, too.

It was harder to maintain her resolve when he'd end his training sessions in bed, trying to hold back tears from the pain. Training was very hard on him, but in time it proved effective and he would end his sessions running to find her and show her his improved aim and strength. The deity that had agreed to train the youngling also provided the favor of using his power to bolster the angel's strength, so he could physically survive more damage and deal more in battle. This was the last thing he did before concluding the training.

And it certainly showed. Whereas Palutena's angel had won his first real battle through a mixture of his early training and Medusa underestimating the child, his battles in the Uprising were won through hard earned skill- and the unusual fortitude bestowed by the other god.

She never stopped worrying for him, while also being confident in his abilities. It was always difficult to send him out, knowing all of his training could mean nothing if things went wrong. And she second-guessed every battle she sent him into.

Palutena knew she shouldn't attach herself to her angels so much; she had created him to fight for her, after all but this happened every time. And she knew this one would break her heart someday by dying. Sometimes, she inadvertently punished him prematurely for this, being short and unpleasant toward him after he came home needing her care. He never quite understood why she sometimes did this, but always trusted that she still loved him.

She always did. She knew it was worth the inevitable pain he would bring her, and so she always loved him.


End file.
